Former GOP staffer charged with child porn found dead in apparent suicide

Ryan Loskarn, a former Senate staffer fired in December over child pornography charges, is dead in an apparent suicide.

Loskarn, 35, had been chief of staff for senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) for two years. In October and November, a federal investigation found that an IP address that matched his home was uploading a file titled "6Yo Girl Kidnaped And Raped In Woods([Pedo]" on the peer-to-peer filesharing service Gnutella. The criminal complaint against Loskarn describes the contents of the video file as being as horrible as they sound.

When police came to Loskam's house in December with a warrant, they reported seeing him sneaking out his second-floor window with a hard drive, which, they said, contained more child porn. Since his arrest, while awaiting trial, he'd worn an ankle bracelet and was confined to his parents' house in Sykesville, Md.

Maryland police said in a statement that's where they found him around noon Thursday, lying unresponsive in the basement. They didn't elaborate on the circumstances of his death, but noted they suspected suicide, and were following up with an investigation.

Alexander, who's up for reelection this year, called the situation "a sad and tragic story from beginning to end."

Last week, hacktivist network Anonymous launched a campaign against online pedophiles, popularizing the hashtag #TwitterPedoRing and publishing the personal information of 105 people suspected of using Twitter to solicit photos and sexually deviant information from minors.